The use of fragrance by mankind as an attractant to the opposite sex has been known for hundreds of years, and in modern time the variety of fragrances available commercially has been growing in leaps and bounds for many years. Fragrance has now also become not only an accompaniment to one's person, but also to one's home or office environment. The concept that one's mood can be altered or improved by exposure to certain fragrances has been around for many years, and in recent times, there are even scientific tests which confirm this psychological power of fragrance.
It is generally recognized in the fragrance industry that natural fragrances are preferable to synthetic ones. It is in many cases possible by chemical analysis, to break down a fragrance, for example, strawberry or rose, into its constituent components, and then synthetically prepare one or more of those components in an attempt to reproduce the aroma of the original source. However, the resulting synthetic products frequently lack the “essence” of the original natural product, and are normally considered inferior in quality to the natural source. Unfortunately, the preparation of aroma compounds from natural sources is not a simple matter, and can be very costly, not always itself yielding products of optimum quality.
Natural fragrances are typically derived from plant extracts. A majority of the aromatic components of plant materials are oils or oil-soluble. These may be isolated in a variety of ways. A first methodology is steam distillation, an ancient method in which the plant is exposed to hot water or vapor, leaving behind a liquid called an essential oil. This method is a desirable one, in that it uses no petrochemicals, but has some limitations, in that it is not useful in extracting essential oils from all types of plant matter. In particular, floral aroma components tend to be altered by the process, so that very few floral essential oils, which would be very much in demand as fragrance ingredients can be prepared in this manner.
A second method of obtaining fragrance components from plant materials is solvent extraction. This process typically employs a non-polar, petrochemical (hydrocarbon) solvent such as benzene, toluene or hexane, to dissolve the waxy and aromatic materials from the plants. The solvent is then evaporated off to leave a solid or semi-solid material known as a “concrete”. The concrete is then washed with ethanol to dissolve the ethanol-soluble components, and with chilling, the waxes can then be filtered off. The ethanol is then evaporated under vacuum, leaving a material known as an “absolute”. All three of these components, i.e., waxes, concretes and absolutes are widely used in the fragrance industry. The limitation of this method ties in its use of petrochemical solvents; many fragrance manufacturers, and particularly aromatherapists, are reluctant to use these products, because of the petrochemical solvent residue. Such residues may also hinder organic certification in those situation where such certification may be desirable.
Another method of obtaining natural fragrance ingredients is known as expression, where the fragrance component is expressed or squeezed out of the plant source. This method is frequently used to obtain natural oils from the peel of citrus fruits such as lemon, time or orange. However, it is not practical for application to delicate floral parts which are the source of so many desirable fragrance components.
A new method of extracting aroma ingredients is supercritical carbon dioxide. This involves heating and pressurizing CO2 until it reaches the supercritical stage and using it as a solvent. It has the advantage of easy removal from the extract (it simply evaporates), but the water in fresh plant materials, such as leaves and flowers interferes with its solvency, making the process inefficient and resulting in poor quality extracts.
Thus, the present state of affairs in the fragrance industry is that there is no currently available method which can produce a variety of floral fragrance absolutes that can be certified organic. However, the present invention now provides such a useful method, along with aromatic components having a unique fragrance and chemical composition.